The speed of climate disruption is outstripping many animals’ capacity to adapt, according to a study that warns of a growing threat to even common species such as sparrows, magpies and deer.

Scientists behind the research described the results as alarming because they showed a dangerous lag between a human-driven shift in the seasons and behavioural changes in the natural world.

Previous academic work has shown that species respond to warming temperatures by earlier timing of biological events, for example egg-laying by birds, budding of plants and flying of insects. The new meta-study, published in Nature Research, examines how effective this is in terms of reproduction and survival.

Based on 10,090 abstracts and extracted data from 71 published studies, it found a clear lag in the majority of species studied and none could be considered safe. “The probability that none of the study species is at risk is virtually zero,” the paper notes.

The authors said hundreds of thousands of species were not covered by their study, which was weighted heavily towards birds in the northern hemisphere, but they said the problems of adaptation to climate change were likely to be even greater for other animals already deemed at risk of extinction.

Viktoriia Radchuk of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany, said: “Personally I find the results alarming. Species attempt to adapt to changing environment, but they cannot do it at a sufficient pace to ensure that populations are viable. Climate change has caused irreversible damage to our biodiversity already, as evidenced by the findings of this study. The fact that species struggle to adapt to the current rate of climate change means we have to take action immediately in order to at least halt or decrease the rate.”

“The climate has changed before,” say people who want to minimize the scale of the current challenge. I have never understood how anyone could find this comforting. The natural climate changes that have shaped human history have almost always been smaller and more regionally contained than the large-scale human-caused change we are currently experiencing. And even these changes have provoked suffering, scapegoating, and the collapse of civilizations.

I am often asked what frightens me most about climate change, whether I lie awake at night thinking about ocean hypoxia or arctic permafrost or other feedback processes that could turn a bad thing into a catastrophe. I am scared of the physical changes that await us on a warming planet, but the most important feedback process is the least well understood. The scariest thing about climate change is what it will make us do to each other.

Basically it requires a new mindset other than: me, me, I want it NOW, of Western Civilization. It goes against our social DNA. It cannot be rewired in just the few generations that we have had since being warned.

Think of the humor as whistling past the graveyard ... although I'm still hopeful that they'll be able to keep the lights on and the convenience stores full of cheese doodles until I'm safely in the grave.

And the truly terrifying thing ... population is still going up, energy consumption is still going up. We haven't even reached the start of the downslope yet.

Scientists have been studying the possible repercussions of global warming for several years, and suggest it is likely to lead not only to warmer temperatures, but also changes to weather patterns.

One such weather change not often mentioned is VPD, which is the difference in air pressure due to water vapor during fully saturated times versus times when it unsaturated. When VPD is increasing, there is less water in the air. VPD is important because of its impact on plants. When VPD rises a certain amount, plants react by closing their stomata, the pores in their leaves, to prevent water loss. But this also shuts down the release of oxygen and the absorption of carbon dioxide—partially shutting down photosynthesis and slowing growth. In this new effort, the researchers wondered if there might be a connection between observed losses of vegetation worldwide and changes to VPD in some parts of the world.

To find out, the researchers obtained datasets that included observation information from across the globe going all the way back to the 1950s. When focusing on VPD, they found that prior to the 1990s, VPD increased only slightly. But after 1998, the VPD grew quite dramatically—by up to 17 times over the next several years in some places, and it remained at those levels. They also found that over half of all vegetated land on the planet experienced a rise in VPD. The researchers also found that the upswing in VPD occurred in lockstep with the rise in global temperatures and the decrease in worldwide vegetative cover.

They suggest that global warming is pushing VPD ever higher, resulting in more loss of vegetation—and because the planet is growing hotter, they predict that VPD will continue to increase, as well, resulting in diminishing vegetative cover.

But why should that be the case when there are plenty of people with very deep pockets and influence at the highest tables who have very strong vested interests in disproving the theories of Global Warming True Believers? Doesnt add up to me.

Tanada has been good enough to regularly update us on arguably the most important numbers in the history of life on the planet--atmospheric CO2 levels--which of course have been increasing on an upward ('Keeling') curve for decades now.

And, in spite of there needing to be exponential growth in CO2e levels for there to be a linear growth in global temperatures, in fact global air temps have also seen and upward curve over the last half century, with each 30-year rate has been increasing starting with 1970-1999, according to BEST.

"...the measured ocean heat content is rising faster than consensus climate scientists previously assumed; particularly in the Southern Ocean. This confirms both that climate sensitivity is currently higher than consensus climate scientists have been assuming, and that the WAIS has a greater risk of collapse this century than previously assumed:"

The agency said the UN had data for heat content in the upper 700 metres (2,290 feet) of the ocean dating back to 1955.

Last year also saw new heat records for the ocean's upper 2,000 metres, but data for that range only goes back to 2005.

The previous records for both ranges were set in 2017.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the latest findings as "another strong wake-up call" for governments, cities and businesses to take action.

"It proves what we have been saying that climate change is moving faster than our efforts to address it," he said at UN headquarters in New York.…The WMO report said the highest rates of ocean warming are occurring in the southern ocean, where warming has also reached the deepest layers.

MaqFot wrote: there are plenty of people with very deep pockets and influence at the highest tables who have very strong vested interests in disproving the theories of Global Warming

They aren't really the problem. There are two main problems that need to be addressed.

The first problem is that virtually everyone, from the poorest to wealthiest, is dependent on our modern society, which is mainly based on energy from fossil fuels. Its extremely difficult and expensive to decarbonize the global economic system. There is lots of talk about it, but virtually nothing concrete has been done, as evidenced by the fact tha global CO2 emissions continue to rise each year.

The second problem is that the majority of carbon emission increases today are coming from China and India, and they were specifically exempted from any obligation to cut CO2 emissions in the bilateral Us-China climate that Obama signed with China in 2015, and then again in the 2016 Paris Accords. The world basically committed itself, by treaty in the Paris Accords, to allowing China and India to produce unlimited amounts of CO2.....and they''re doing their best to take advantage of that.